Trail Running Gear Reviews

Category: Races

I had the opportunity to volunteer at Western States in 2017 at the Peachstone (Cal-2) aid station which sits at mile 70.7 along the Western States trail in the Foresthill Divide, east of Auburn, deep in the canyon near the American River. I’m told this year had the highest number of DNFs and the slowest female winning time largely due to the oppressive heat and humidity throughout the race, and the snow and mud conditions in the first miles of the race. This is my story from this years race.

Late last year, some friends in one of my local running groups, Wasatch Mountain Wranglers, signed up for the Rainshadow Running Gorge Waterfalls 100k and posted in our Facebook group. Caught up in the subsequent fervor, and with my eye on wanting to qualify for Western States, I jumped at the chance and signed up! The race ended up selling out in less than a day, so I’m really glad I made the decision before it was too late.

I initially entered the lottery for the Mt. Hood 50 miler but was not lucky enough to be one of the 200 people accepted, and to add insult to injury, I was about 180 deep on the wait list (meaning my name was picked 380th or so).

Squaw Peak 50 was my very first ultra distance race back in 2014 so it holds a special place in my running history. Most people thought I was crazy for jumping straight from half marathons to 50 milers, but jumping to a Marathon just didn’t seem like a big enough challenge.

I’m currently training for my third ultra, the Squaw Peak 50, on June 6, 2015 and my training plan called for 26 miles yesterday. I’ve never actually had any interest in running a marathon (even though I’ve run many half-marathons and a couple ultras) as I never really felt like pushing myself full speed for about 4 hours, and I’m not a huge fan of pavement/asphalt running.